Exploring Nature in New Hampshire

Early May Flowers

Our white flowered trees are in full bloom along the roadsides. Shadbush (Amelanchier canadensis) is almost always first to flower, followed by cherries, apples, crabapples, and plums.

Naturalists and botanists have been arguing for years over the many native shadbush species and hybrids. The 5 white flower petals can appear quite different in each, but none of the several variations that I’ve seen have had blossoms bigger than a nickel. All of them seem to have multiple large stamens. Shadbushes bloom earlier than the other shrubs and trees but are often still in bloom when the others bloom. The flowers appear before the leaves, unlike apples. Small, reddish purple to purple, apple shaped fruits follow in June. The fruit is a berry similar in size to a blueberry and has from 5-10 seeds. They taste best when they are more purple than red. Shadbush flowers are pretty but their fragrance isn’t very appealing.

If you have dandelions and violets in your lawn, there’s a good chance that you also have wild strawberries (Fragaria virginiana). If the pollinators do their job each of these flowers will become a small but delicious strawberry. The month of June was known to many Native American tribes as the “Strawberry Moon” because that was when most strawberries began to ripen. The berries were picked, dried and stored for winter use, or added to pemmican, soups, and breads. In the garden strawberries easily reproduce vegetatively by runners (stolons,) but the fruit was so plentiful in the wild that colonials in North America didn’t bother cultivating them until the early 1800s. The first documented botanical illustration of a strawberry plant appeared in 1454.

They’re called broadleaf weeds and some people are less than happy when they find them in their lawn, but I welcome violets in mine and I’m always happy to see them. In fact one of the most beautiful sights I’ve ever seen was a large field of dandelions and violets blooming together and I’d love to have a “lawn” that looked like it did. Violets can be difficult to identify and, like the many small yellow flowers I see, I’ve given up trying. I just enjoy their beauty and notice that they have the same features as many other flowers. The deep purple lines on the petals guide insects into the flower’s throat while brushy bits above dust its back with pollen.

Some of my lawn violets are white, and shyer than the purple. Native Americans had many uses for violets. They made blue dye from them to dye their arrows with and also soaked corn seed in an infusion made from the roots before it was planted to keep insect pests from eating the seeds. The Inuktitut Eskimo people placed stems and flowers among their clothes to give them a sweet fragrance, and almost all tribes ate the leaves and flowers. How many chubby little toddler fists have proudly held out a bouquet of wilted violets in the spring? I can remember doing so as a small boy. My grandmother always pretended to love them more than all of the other flowers combined.

In a ground ivy blossom (Glechoma hederacea) five petals are fused together to form a tube. The lowest and largest petal, which is actually two petals fused together, serves as a landing area for insects, complete with tiny hairs for them to hang onto. The darker spots are nectar guides for them to follow into the tube. The pistil’s forked style pokes out at the top under one of the three separate petals. It’s in a perfect position to brush the back of a hungry bee. This flower is all about continuation of the species, and judging by the many thousands that I see its method is perfection. It’s another invader, introduced into North America as an ornamental or medicinal plant as early as the 1800s, when it immediately began taking over the continent. But nobody seems to mind.

Vinca (Vinca minor) is a trailing plant and is also a slightly invasive one from Europe. It has been here long enough to have erased any memories of them having once crossed the Atlantic on the deck of a wooden ship though. In the 1800s Vinca was a plant given by one neighbor to another along with lilacs and peonies, and I’ve seen all three still blooming beautifully near old cellar holes off in the middle of nowhere. But the word vinca means “to bind” in Latin, and that’s what the wiry stems do. They grow thickly together and form an impenetrable mat that other plants can’t grow through, and I know of large areas with nothing but vinca growing in them. But all in all it is nowhere near as aggressive as many non-natives so we enjoy its beautiful violet purple flowers and coexist. Another name for it is Myrtle.

I’ve known that coltsfoot (Tussilago farfara) likes damp soil but this is the first time I’ve seen them growing directly in the water of a stream. There used to be a colony of plants growing on the bank of this stream but in 2014 the stream flooded and washed them all away. Or so I thought; it looks like those plants left plenty of seeds behind.

I’m having a hard time with bloodroot plants this year. The flowers won’t open on cloudy days and close for the night in early evening. Since they’ve been blooming it seems like cloudy days and late evenings have been the only times I’ve had to look for them. My favorite colony was buried inside the tangled limbs of a fallen tree so I found the two plants pictured in a new smaller colony, but they were closing up shop for the night, even though the sun was still shining. I wanted to show you this photo though, because of the oak leaf on the left. It’s a good comparison for those of you who’ve never seen a bloodroot blossom before.

Bloodroot flowers are beautiful little things but they’re are hard to enjoy sometimes because at the slightest hint of darkness they close up their petals to resemble small, unopened white tulips.

Bluets (Houstonia caerulea) can grow in huge drifts like this one. Though this tiny wildflower is thought to be a spring ephemeral I’ve seen it bloom all summer long. I think it got the reputation for being an ephemeral because it often grows in lawns and once the lawn is mowed you don’t see the flowers any longer. They like sunny spots and appear in early spring.

Bluets are cheery, beautiful little things but individual flowers are small; only about 3/8 of an inch in diameter. Luckily they always grow in tufts of many blossoms and are easily found. Each year I always try to find the flowers that best live up to their name. So far the examples in the above photo are the winners. Another name for the plant is innocence. The Native American Cherokee tribe used bluet plants to cure bedwetting.

Wild ginger (Asarum canadense) grows and blossoms very quickly. Just days before I took this photo these plants were showing nothing but stems (Rhizomes) running along the soil surface under a collection of last year’s leaves. Scientists thought for years that wild ginger flowers were pollinated by flies or fungus gnats, but several studies have shown that they are self-pollinated.

I thought I’d take you inside a hairy wild ginger blossom, at least as far as I could. A wild ginger flower has no petals; it is made up of 3 triangular shaped calyx lobes that are fused into a cup and curl backwards. You might think, because of its meat-like color, that flies would happily visit this flower and they do occasionally, but they have little to nothing to do with the plant’s pollination. It is thought they crawl into the flower simply to get warm.

The long rhizomes of wild ginger were used by Native Americans as a seasoning. It has similar aromatic properties as true ginger but the plant has been found to contain aristolochic acid, which is a carcinogenic compound that can cause kidney damage. Native Americans also used the plant medicinally for a large variety of ailments.

Wood anemone (Anemone quinquefolia) is very similar to false rue anemone (Enemion biternatum.) Rue anemone (Thalictrum thalictroides) which is also similar, also grows in New Hampshire, which complicates being able to identify these plants. While false rue anemone is native to the eastern U.S., the USDA and other sources say that it doesn’t grow in New England, so that leaves wood anemone and rue anemone. False rue anemone always has 5 white sepals, while wood anemone and true rue anemone can have more.

The small fertile flowers in the center of hobblebush (Viburnum lantanoides) flower heads haven’t opened yet but the larger, sterile flowers around the outer edges have. Technically a hobblebush flower head is a corymb, which is just a fancy word for a flat topped, usually disc shaped flower head. It comes from the Latin corymbus, which means a cluster of fruit or flowers. All flowers in a hobblebush cluster, both fertile and infertile, have 5 petals.

A close look at the large sterile flowers of hobblebush shows no reproductive parts. They are there for only one reason, and that is to attract insects to the flower head. Many viburnums have this kind of arrangement and it seems to work well, because I see plenty of fruit on them later in the summer. Hobblebush is easily one of our most beautiful native shrubs.

Leatherleaf (Chamaedaphne calyculata) could pass as a blueberry at a glance, but its leaves are evergreen and it likes very wet, even boggy ground. Blueberry is not evergreen and usually grows naturally in dry sandy soil. Leatherleaf also blooms earlier than blueberry. This is its first appearance on this blog.

Leatherleaf obviously gets its common name from its tough, evergreen, leathery leaves. They are lighter colored on their undersides and are scaly with tiny scales. Florists use sprays of leatherleaf leaves as filler in bouquets. This type of flower must be very successful. It is used by blueberries, lily of the valley, dogbane, bearberry, Japanese andromeda, white heather, and many other plants. Native Americans used the plant to reduce inflammation and to treat fevers, headaches, and sprains.

Our purple trilliums (Trillium erectum) have started to bloom and I’m seeing quite a few this year. Purple trillium is also called wake robin, because its bloom time heralded the return of the robins. The flowers have no nectar and are thought to be pollinated by flies and beetles. Their petals have an unpleasant odor that is said to be similar to spoiled meat, and this entices the flies and beetles to land and pollinate them. I can attest to the unpleasant odor but they’re very beautiful and will be at their peak of bloom soon. As they age each petal will turn a deeper purple. Their stay is all too brief but when they fade they’ll be followed by nodding trilliums (Trillium cernuum) and then painted trilliums (Trillium undulatum,) both of which are also very beautiful.

My relationship to plants becomes closer and closer. They make me quiet; I like to be in their company. ~Peter Zumthor

A beautiful, and educational, tour of your area in spring! I agree a lawn full of violets and dandelions is a better lawn. I wish we had violets here, but I have not found any on the farm. It may be too dry in summer. I remember them well from back east.

That is an excellent photo of a ground-ivy flower! It was always a very useful plant to have in the old days especially for flavouring ale and it also improved the beer’s keeping qualities. You have so many very pretty flowers blooming now; thank-you for this beautiful and informative post.

Thank you Clare. Ground ivy is a very aromatic plant. We have a lot of beer makers here, big and small. I wonder if any of them know about what ground ivy does.
We’re slowly coming into the time when we’ll see flowers literally everywhere we look. It’s a brief but beautiful period.

Yes, that’s my favorite trillium of the ones I’ve found in this area. It’s quite showy.
Spring is here but we’re still on the temperature roller coaster. There’s a big low pressure system that’s supposed to park itself over us and bring rain and showers for over a week. That should hold some of the plants back some.

You certainly have a lot of flowers in bloom now. Of the ones that also grow here too, not all have begun to bloom yet. I’m wondering if perhaps that is simply because of the difference in elevation. Our valley is at about 2400 feet. (Also it is 30º here this morning.)

Thanks Montucky! You could be right. Keene is only 486 feet above sea level. On the other hand though, cold air seems to pool up in low spots.
We’ve seen warmth too though; summer warmth, and I’ve noticed that it has brought some plants on a little earlier than usual. I just hope we don’t see a frost. They say 35º for us tonight and we can see frost right up until June.

What a great round-up of wild flowers. Thanks for a most interesting post. Down by our stream, there is a small clump of huge wake robins blooming. By huge, I mean that the leaves are bigger than any I’ve ever seen.

I grew up in upstate New York and remember bloodroot everywhere then. I’ve rarely seen it here in NH, but this spring, suddenly they’re everywhere on our Peterborough property. My neighbor commented about the sudden appearance on her property too. I’m very happy to see them each morning when the dogs and I make the rounds.

Thank you Tammy. When I made my living as a gardener I worked at quite a few houses on Pine Street in Peterborough, and some had bloodroot growing naturally and others didn’t. Sometimes the houses were right next door to each other, and I could never see any difference in the soil or exposure, but I guess the bloodroots could.
You’re very lucky to have them!